All the Other Kids Were Into Nintendo
by Big D on a Diet
Summary: Formerly "Effective", now expanded into a multi-chapter fic.
1. Effective

Effective

by Big D

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

AN: A slightly different version of John. Taking the character out for a test spin.

"Do you like this girl," Sarah asked quietly.

John bit back the first response that came to mind. The one that he knew would frustrate and annoy her. It was as honest question and deserved an honest answer.

"She's just a girl," he said. "It's not like we're picking out wedding china or anything."

The second part comes forth unbidden, but it's too late to back down now. Luckily, Sarah's not in the mood for a fight.

"If you care about her, you'll get rid of her before she gets hurt," she says softly, more in resignation than anger. A simple statement of fact.

John opens his mouth to reply, but stops. His eyes settle on the metal frame she's holding, on the white-knuckled grip of her right hand. He doesn't even think she notices how hard she's squeezing it, almost to the point of drawing blood. For the first time in what seems like months, he really looks at his mother.

Rawhide and whipcord are the first things that come to mind. She's lost weight… not much, maybe five or six pounds, but it makes a difference on someone who didn't have it to lose. Tight muscles shift under too-pale skin like a feral animal, constantly twitching, ready to run or fight at a moment's notice. Even bent over at work, her eyes move constantly, touching on everything in her field of vision but refusing to land on him for more than a heartbeat, just long enough to make sure he's still there, still breathing.

In that one, crystal clear moment, she is once again the half insane woman that he and Uncle Bob rescued from Pescadero State Hospital years ago, the same one who later tried to murder an innocent man in cold blood right in front of his wife and child. John felt his stomach clench. In the years after the destruction of Cyberdyne Systems and the T-1000, his mother had never stopped being vigilant, never wavered in her dedication to protect and prepare him for his destiny, even if it was one they hoped they had changed, but he had always thought that she had left that broken part of herself behind. Seeing it again, even just for a second, was extremely unnerving.

He had a sudden urge to wrap his arms around her and tell her that he loved her. That he would go to school tomorrow and break it off with Riley. To apologize for being such a brat and promise to do better if only she would smile for him and mean it.

For whatever reason though, the words wouldn't come, and a few moments later he found himself shuffling back up the path to his room, leaving his mother to battle her demons alone yet again. He flopped down on the narrow little rainbow bed that had come with the room and stared up at the ceiling as if all the solutions to his problems were hidden somewhere in the pattern of tiny bumps.

It wasn't long before a soft knock came at the door. John studiously ignored it, going for bonus sullen brat points, but Cameron walked right in anyway.

He lifted his head up to look at her. "Why are you dressed like a whore?"

It's a cheap shot and he knows it, but he's developed a bad habit of taking his frustrations out on her ever since his birthday. Something that has only gotten worse since the "Allison" incident.

She blinks in surprise, or what passes for it from a cyborg, and glances down at herself. She's wearing tiny black shorts and a white tank top that leaves her arms and shoulders bare while doing exceedingly little to hide the bright pink bra underneath, or the smooth, toned lines of her stomach. She looks up at him again, tilting her head to the side curiously.

"This is how I always dress."

John clicked his teeth distastefully. "I've noticed. Doesn't change the question."

She shrugged and walked towards him. "It's hot out."

"That's not an answer, it's an evasion."

Cameron gently eased herself onto the bed next to him, knees drawn up slightly so that they brushed against the side of his leg. She shifted so that her face and upper body were turned towards him.

"I feel heat," she said quietly.

He had refused to move over when she invaded his personal space yet again, which left the terminator pressed lightly against the length of his body, her head nearly resting on his shoulder. John moved even closer, turning on his side and propping himself up on one arm.

"Effective," he said quietly.

She blinked again and opened her mouth to speak.

John didn't give her the chance. "That's what you said when you saw Vick touch Barbara on the mouth." He reached out and pressed the tips of his fingers to Cameron's lips, pulling the bottom one down slightly. She watched him silently with those big brown eyes, the beginnings of a smile quirking the corners of her mouth.

John let his hand trail along the point of her chin and down the center of her neck, not breaking eye contact. "Just making conversation, right? But I'm pretty sure I figured out what you really meant." The back of his knuckles traced a line between the hollow of her breasts and she inhaled, pushing herself against his hand.

His voice was soft, speaking to himself as much as her. "Vick wanted something from her, something that he wasn't going to get by torturing or killing her, so he found another way. A more… effective way."

His hand found it's way to the hem of her shirt and slipped beneath it. He laid his palm flat against the taut plain of her belly and moved upwards again, pulling the fabric with him and exposing the perfect skin underneath. Cameron leaned closer, her lips parting slightly. The tips of his two middle fingers rested on the tiny strap on the front of her bra and his thumb stroked a small circle in the place beneath where her ribs would be if she was human. He could feel gooseflesh rising under his fingers.

"Is this what you think is effective with me? Flash a little skin, maybe fiddle with the 'ol fire hose if that's what it takes?" He didn't bother raising his voice, but bitterness crept into his tone. "Come in here, play the good cop and bad cop at the same time?" He made his voice higher and more monotone. "'You're going to get Riley killed, John. But don't worry about those raging teenage hormones, because I'm more than just a machine.' Is that the plan?"

Cameron's expression didn't change, but John thought he saw her eyes go slightly blank.

"You bring danger into Riley's life."

"I'm John Connor," he says dismissively. "There are unborn babies in Uruguay who are in danger because of me. What makes her different?"

She looked down slightly. "You're not John Connor yet."

His fingers curled involuntarily, nails digging into her skin. If she notices, she doesn't acknowledge it. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She glanced back up at him. "John Connor only puts people's lives in danger when it's necessary. Not because he's angry or lonely. He's not that selfish."

John growled wordlessly and rolled over on top of her. It was a useless gesture and he knew it, but he grabbed by her shoulders, pinning her down.

"What would you know about why I do anything," he snarled, leaning down to stare into her face.

Cameron looked up at him, a picture of serenity. Like they were chatting at the breakfast table.

"You and I talk about it a lot."

He closed his eyes and chuckled mirthlessly. "Yeah, that's right. You know all about John Connor, don't you? More than I know about myself."

"Yes."

"So tell me this. Your John. What would he do right now?"

He had been half expecting it, but it still came as something of a shock when Cameron craned her neck up and pressed her lips against his. After a moment, he began kissing her back, running his tongue along the inside of her lips until hers slipped out to duel with him.

She moved underneath him, rolling them over so that she was on top. A tiny part of his brain that wasn't busy making out with a cyborg noted how much heavier she was than she looked. Disguising a terminator as a pretty girl might seem like a pretty obvious move on the surface, but the weight from all that metal made a lot more sense when the it was wrapped up in a bodybuilder coating.

While he was chasing inanities in his head, Cameron was keeping busy. Her fingers moved through his hair as she kissed down the side of his neck. She reached the collar of his shirt, and John sat up slightly so she could pull it off of him. She bent back down and nibbled along his collarbone.

His own hands went to work as well, running lightly up the sides of her legs and pushing up her skirt. The warm, perfectly smooth flesh under his palms shifted and moved just like real skin and muscle would, and Cameron let out an all-too-human moan when his fingers dug into her backside, pulling her even more firmly against him.

She kissed the hollow of his throat, then leaned back on her heels. With a swift, fluid motion, she skinned off her top and tossed it aside. Her arms moved deftly behind her, unhooking her bra and slipping it off her shoulders.

Generally speaking, modesty wasn't a concept that Cameron had much use for, so she wasn't really showing him anything he hadn't at least gotten a glimpse of before. Still, there was a pleasantly satisfying difference between watching her march to and from the shower without bothering to bring a towel, and seeing her strip off while she was straddling him.

Had to be a guy thing.

She leaned down and kissed him again, the firm tips of her breasts pressing into his chest. John caught her by the shoulders as she released his mouth and began to slowly slide down his body.

"Not quite yet," John said quietly, wrapping his arms around her and tucking her head into his shoulder. "I need to ask you something first."

She began running her lips along the side of his neck again and made a soft, questioning noise.

He brushed her hair aside and whispered into her ear. "Who's Allison?"

Cameron went perfectly still. If John had thought she was capable of it, he'd say it was a stunned silence. She started to lift her head up, but he tightened his grip on her. She could have broken away from him easily, but she didn't try.

"Allison Young," John whispered again, a sliver of steel creeping into his voice. "From Palmdale. Who is she?"

Cameron said nothing.

"You know what I think," he said. "I think she's the person who's face you're wearing." He lifted her head off his shoulder and looked into her eyes. "Am I getting close?"

She looked down at him, her face… Allison's face, fathomless as ever. "Yes."

"She was someone I cared about? In the future?"

"Yes."

"You replaced her?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To get close to you."

"To kill me?"

"Yes."

John felt his eyes narrow. "Did you kill her?"

A moment's hesitation. Almost like she didn't want to admit it to him. "Yes."

She was heavier than someone her size should be, but not so heavy that he wasn't able to push her off of him and onto the floor. She landed on her back next to the bed and John leapt to his feet, grabbing his shirt and slipping it back on. Cameron leaned against the wall, still bare to the waist, looking up at him with a typically unreadable expression.

"You're right," he said angrily. "I'm not the John Connor you know. I'm not the one who's still in love with a dead girl, and I'm not the one who's trying to replace her with a murdering erector set in a skin suit because I'm afraid to let anyone else get close to me."

He sat down on the bed across from her and leaned down with his elbows on his knees to look in her eyes.

"But you know what the real difference between me and that other John is? He trusts you. I don't. You lie to me, Cameron. You do it all the time, and every single time it happens I trust you a little less. Maybe he was able to look past that because of what you remind him of, but I can't. You haven't earned that. Not yet, maybe not ever.

Have you ever wondered why I didn't let mom and Derek burn you? I want to make this very clear, just in case you think it was because you told me that you love me."

He leaned in closer to her. "I let you live because when the bullets start flying, you're a really good place to hide behind. Nothing more."

He stood up and grabbed her shirt and bra, tossing them at her without looking.

"We're done now," he said quietly, the heat gone from his voice. "Put your clothes on and get the hell out of my room."

John stared out the window, listening to her dress and move towards the door. She lingered there for a moment, perhaps thinking of something else to say.

"Just go!" he snapped over his shoulder. He really didn't want to hear her voice right now.

The door closed with a soft click and he stood there for a moment, wondering for the millionth time why being John Connor had to be so fucking complicated. Sometimes it seemed like leading the human race back from the brink of extinction would end up being the easy part of his life, compared to living in this house.

"Fuck this," he muttered under his breath, marching across the room and grabbing his jacket. Maybe his mother was right. It galled him to think it, but maybe Cameron was right too. He really was being selfish by hanging out with Riley. He needed to break it off, before things inevitably got out of hand.

He pulled his cell phone out and thumbed her speed dial.

"Hey, did you ditch the parental yet," she asked him when she picked up.

He hesitated. They were supposed to meet tonight. He had made plans with her. Sullen brat morphing into full-blown rebellious teenager.

"John?"

"I'll be there in a couple of minutes," he said finally.

"See you then!"

He clicked the phone shut and went into the bathroom to grab his bag. Maybe dumping Riley was the right thing to do, but there was nothing set in stone that said he couldn't at least have one nice memory with her before it happened.

"After all," he said to himself as he slipped out the door. "It's just a day in Mexico. What's the worst that could happen?"

(end)

AN: I started this before it was revealed that Riley was from the future (Which frankly just makes me hate her even more. I dig the idea and I like the direction they seem to be taking it, but Riley as a character grates on me like nails on a chalkboard.)


	2. Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Once Upon a Time in Mexico

by Big D

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

AN: A few slight edits have been made to chapter one. Mostly just contextual stuff that only I would care about, plus tweaking a couple of things that Dark Syaoran pointed out to me in his review.

"You sure you don't want to go out to lunch," John asked.

Riley let out a contented sigh and snuggled a little deeper into his chest. "I thought you were the one who said you wanted to avoid the unwashed masses."

John let his hand run along the length of her bare arm and twirled a lock of wavy blonde hair around his index finger. "I figured you might be bored. There's a little place around the corner that makes great hot sauce."

Riley made a face and moved up to kiss him again, her bare body sliding comfortably against his. "You're not _quite_ bad enough at this for me to get bore--OOWWW!!!" She jumped and smacked him in the stomach when he pinched her in the side, cutting her off.

He gave her his best what-did-you-expect look and she humphed in response before going right back to using him as a pillow. John stroked her hair again and tried one more time to shake the incredibly aggravating but steadfast sense that the naked girl sprawled out on top of him was entirely too light and insubstantial, like she would blow away with the next strong breeze.

He closed his eyes and sighed. Mentally comparing the feel of the two girls who had had straddled and stripped for him in the last twelve hours was a perfectly normal thing for any red-blooded American teenage boy to do. What wasn't normal was that, in comparison to his personal-killing-machine/fake-sister/future-attempted-assassin, the supposed "real" girl was coming up a little short. He hadn't quite gotten to the point where he was picturing wide brown eyes instead of blue when Riley looked up at him or… god forbid… moaning Cameron's name while he was inside of her, but there was a niggling part of him that felt guilty for being here with her, something that hadn't happened in his room with Cameron. He had been utterly furious with her for trying to manipulate him yet again, but Riley hadn't crossed his mind once while they were together.

It was almost a relief when his cell phone rang and he had an excuse to disentangle himself from her. Riley groaned and grabbed at his wrist to stop him from answering it, but he shook her off. She was the only person in his life who called him just to chat. Everyone else he knew was far more economical with their words.

"It's probably your mom," she sighed and rolled over away from him.

Oddly enough, John found himself slightly relieved at the thought. If nothing else, it might give him an excuse to leave early. He glanced at the caller ID, then thumbed the phone open and set it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Where the hell are you, John?"

John felt a cold shiver run down his spine, but it didn't have anything to do with the furious tone in Sarah's voice. He stood up and walked into the bathroom, carefully closing the door behind him.

"Is my mother alive?" He was surprised at how steady his voice was.

A split second's hesitation, then an entirely different voice came through the phone. "Sarah Connor's death is not my mission," Cromartie's, smooth deadpan answered. "She is alive, for now. You changed your code for communications?"

John opened the door a crack and glanced back out at Riley. She had rolled over into the warm spot he had left behind on the bed, curling up into a ball, oblivious to the world.

"Yeah," he answered. "We changed it."

"I thought you would have. A calculated risk, calling you without knowing it, but your disappearance put me at a tactical disadvantage."

"Well, ain't that a shame for you. I'm crying crocodile tears, I swear."

Silence for a moment. "Where are you?"

"Far enough away to disappear long before you get anywhere close."

"If you do that, then I will have no further use for Sarah Connor."

John closed his eyes and swore under his breath. This was every one of his worst nightmares come to life. "All I know for sure is that you have her cell," he countered, trying desperately to focus on the task at hand and not the idea of his mother at the mercy of a terminator. "How do I know that you actually have her? And don't insult either one of us by saying that you'll put her on the phone."

Cromartie's answer was immediate and devastating. "I retrieved her from 309 Calder Street in Los Angeles. She was installing a fireproof safe in the floor when I captured her."

John thought he was going to be sick. The goddamned thing had already been in their house once, and had left after apparently satisfying itself that John Connor didn't live there. Why the hell would it come back?

"What do you want?"

"To terminate you and fulfill my primary mission objective," Cromartie answered almost offhandedly. "Surrender yourself and I will release Sarah Connor unharmed."

'_Next time you do what you're trained to do and RUN!!!'_ His mother's voice screamed inside of his head words that had been drilled into him since the day he could speak and understand. '_You can not risk yourself, not even for me. Do you understand?! You're too important!'_

He remembered what she said after Cameron had stopped him from trying to save Jordan before she killed herself. It was a different conversation, in a different context, but the same message.

'_You can't be a hero, John.'_

"Isn't that who I'm supposed to be," he said quietly. It was the same question he had asked her at the time. She'd never given him an answer.

"I didn't catch that," Cromartie said over the phone, bringing him back to the present. "What's your answer?"

"I'm in Mexico," he said, then gave the town and hotel information.

It didn't take the terminator more that a second or two to calculate the distances. "I am approximately two hours and forty six minutes from your location. If you are not there when I arrive, I will terminate Sarah Connor and continue searching for you."

John snapped the phone closed and bowed his head in frustration. He knew exactly how his mother would see this, as the worst kind of betrayal imaginable. She had sacrificed everything to protect and prepare him for his destiny, and now he was putting it all on the line to save her life, something she had told him never to do under any circumstance.

He glanced at his watch. "Get a grip, John. Time's a-wasting." He opened the phone again and scrolled down to Cameron's number, then hesitated and hit Derek's instead. Maybe it was stupid, but explaining to her exactly where he was and what he was doing there held very little appeal at the moment.

"Yeah." His uncle's voice sounded strained and more than a little aggravated, but that was nothing unusual. John hit the emergency code and waited for the proper response, which came after a brief muttered curse from the older man.

"I'm in trouble. Where are you?"

A note of concern crept into Derek's voice. "At the supply drop. The metal's here with me."

There had to be a story behind that, but John didn't have time to ask. "Cromartie has mom. He's on his way here."

A few seconds of silence. "Where are you?"

John told him. And about the deal he had made. He could hear his uncle moving around, gathering weapons and ammo. If Derek had a comment to make about why John was in Mexico or whether or not he was an idiot for risking himself to save his mother, he didn't mention it. Cameron said something in the background that John couldn't make out, but Derek ignored her.

"Jesus Christ, John. How far away is the machine?"

"About two hours and forty… three minutes, give or take. Maybe less."

The background noise stopped. Derek took a deep breath.

"He's going to beat us there."

It wasn't an apology. Just a fact.

"I know," John answered quietly. "Don't worry about being on time, just don't be late."

Derek's voice was even harder than normal. "I won't. You got a plan?"

"Working on it."

"Well work fast. You're gonna need to buy us a few minutes."

"I'll see what I can do."

Another heartbeat or two worth of silence.

"John?"

"Yeah?"

"See you in three hours."

John felt a ghost of a smile cross his face. "See you then."

He closed the phone again and marched into the bedroom, grabbing his clothes off the dresser and quickly sliding into them. He picked up Riley's stuff and tossed them unceremoniously on top of her, drawing an angry hiss from the blonde girl.

"Riley, get up. You need to go."

She snatched her panties off her head and glared up at him. "What's your damage, John?"

He sat down and pulled his boots on. "I don't have time for an argument. You remember that guy who came by my house looking for Cam? He kidnapped my mother and he's on his way here to kill me right now."

He half expected her to laugh at him or ask him what the hell he was talking about, but all she did was gape in shock for a few seconds, then start putting on her clothes. He finished dressing and pulled a wad of cash from his pocket.

"You remember where the bus stop is, right? One leaves for LA every hour at fifteen past until sundown."

He counted out three hundred dollars and held it out towards her. She looked at him as it he were insane.

"What's that for?"

John let out a frustrated breath. "There's no time for this, Riley. You need to run. He won't come after you if you're away from me."

She stood up, pulling her shirt on. "John, if someone's coming to kill you, then we both need to run."

He stopped and stared at her. "I just told you he has my mother. I can't run."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Well I'm not leaving you. So you can either come with me or tell me what I can do to help."

John glanced at his watch again. No time for this. "Fine. Fuck it. Grab your jacket."

He opened the door and walked out into the courtyard, not bothering to wait for her, and broke into a loping jog towards the setting sun. Riley caught up a few seconds later, puffing noticeably but keeping the pace.

"Where are we going?"

He glanced over at her, wondering why she insisted on staying but letting it slide for now. "Never hunt a Connor on it's home turf."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You remember that cabana on the beach I mentioned earlier? Where me and my mom used to live?"

"Yeah."

"She stashed some supplies nearby. We're going to go fetch them and give Cromartie a big surprise when he shows up."

She shot him a slightly worried look. "When you say 'supplies', I take it you're not talking about bottled water and duct tape, right?"

He shrugged. "There's some of that there too, but it's the .50 caliber armor piercing rounds I'm after."

They jogged in silence for a few moments before Riley spoke again.

"You know, John, I don't get to say things like this very often, so I hope you can understand where I'm coming from."

"What's that?"

She looked over at him again. "Your family is fucking weird."

He didn't really have a response for that, so he ignored it and upped the pace even further. Riley surprised him again by continuing to match him, even though she was obviously having to push herself. The tourists and festival goers thinned out as they moved away from the center of town and it wasn't long before he turned them down a narrow switchback trail that branched off from the main road and led down towards the ocean. He looked at his watch again. They were making good time, but he still needed to figure out how he was going to get what they needed from Sarah weapons stash all the way back to the hotel without getting arrested.

He kept his head down in thought, letting his feet guide him down the familiar path that he had taken a thousand times as a child, and didn't notice at first that Riley had pulled up and slowed to a walk. He turned around to snap at her to move faster, but stopped at the confused look on her face.

"Are you sure this is the right place," she asked, staring at something behind him.

"Of course I'm sure, I--" He glanced over his shoulder and felt his jaw drop open in shock. "What the fucking hell is _THAT_!"

She stepped up and stood next to him. "It wasn't there when you lived here before?"

"No! My _HOUSE_ was there when I lived here before!"

She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. "That's just wrong. Why would they put one right on the beach like that?"

John numbly broke into a run again, Riley following behind him. He kept thinking that if only he got close enough, the monstrosity in front of him would fade away and prove itself to be some kind of stress-induced hallucination. That faint hope was dashed when his foot landed solidly on the leading edge of a sea of asphalt surrounding the brand new Wal-Mart SuperCenter that had been built squarely on top of one of the few places on Earth that he had really considered home.

He stopped again looked around despairingly. "You know, sometimes I wonder if the human race is really worth the effort," he said out loud.

Riley glanced at him uncomfortably and tried to change the subject. "So do you think your mother's stuff is still around here?"

John sighed and pointed at a large, open greenhouse. "If it is, it's somewhere underneath the Home and Garden Center."

"So we're kinda screwed, right?"

"Yeah, we're definitely screwed."

He felt her touch his arm and turned to face her. He'd never seen her look so serious, not even back in the hotel room when he told her Cromartie was coming to kill him.

"John… we can still run. Your mom wouldn't want you to get hurt if there's nothing you can do."

He felt his resolve firm. "I'm not running. I just… I just need to figure something else out."

'_Alright, Connor,' _he thought to himself, running a hand through his hair and wracking his brain for some kind of plan. '_What would mom do?'_ He knew the answer to that. '_She'd tell you to stop being an idiot and run for your life. Okay, never mind that… what would dad do?'_

He stopped and grinned, a wry chuckle escaping his lips. "You know, that just might work."

He turned back to Riley. "Do you have your cell phone?"

She blinked at him. "Yeah, I think so." She patted her pockets and reached into one, handing it to him.

John checked the signal and glanced at the power attachment before nodding to himself. He grabbed Riley's hand, pulling her towards the store at a dead sprint.

**SARAH'S P.O.V.**

The border crossing had been the worst part.

Sarah wasn't sure why the machine had decided to take her into Mexico, but she had easily recognized the sounds of the mass crossing at San Ysidro into Tijuana. She had been forced to lay there quietly in the trunk while the border guards walked between the cars, close enough that she could hear them chatting amongst themselves. Perversely, she found herself praying that none of them would recognize the man driving the car as the same one who had butchered two dozen FBI agents, or think to look in the trunk where she was tied up and being held against her will.

If that happened, Cromartie wouldn't hesitate to kill everyone in the area. The only way Sarah could protect them was to do nothing, even if it ended up costing her own life whenever they got where they were going.

So she laid there, sweat streaming into her eyes and soaking through her shirt, trying not to make a sound when all she wanted to do was howl. The sun beat down mercilessly against the unforgiving steel surrounding her, slowly baking her in her own skin. Once they were across the border, the terminator opened up the throttle, sending them screaming down rough dirt roads, where every pothole and ditch left her suspended in midair for half a second before she came crashing down again on her side. As the endless minutes ticked by, she actually began to wonder if Cromartie had somehow forgotten about her, or if he was going to just leave her inside this tiny metal box until the heat and ruthless pounding saved him the trouble of putting a bullet in her.

That thought, and the images it brought to the front of her mind, sent a stab of primal, instinctive terror rushing through her. It was the same kind of instinct that drove coyotes to gnaw off their own legs rather than stay locked in a trap, waiting for the hunter to show up. Several moments later she realized that she was screaming uncontrollably and kicking against the inside of the trunk in a panicked rage. She felt a sharp crack in her left foot and realized that she had broken her big toe.

They must not have been driving through a populated area, because Cromartie didn't even slow down during her outburst. Sarah rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, trying to will away the helpless tears that were gathering there. The only comfort she could draw from the situation was that she didn't know where John was and couldn't tell Cromartie no matter what he did to her. She had never been so grateful for her son's current attack of teenaged angst as she had been when the terminator had opened the door to his room and he hadn't been there.

The knowledge that at least he was safe soothed her mind and helped her bring herself back under control. She had to have faith that no matter what happened to her, Derek would look after him, and continue to prepare him for what was to come. Cameron would be there as well, though she still found trusting the female terminator nearly impossible after the car bomb. More to the point, she found it hard to trust her after what she had said while John had been trying to remove her chip. If Sarah had ever needed any proof that Cameron was manipulating him, that was it.

'_I need her,' _was what he told Derek afterwards. '_She saves my life.'_

Despite her own misgivings, Sarah prayed that he was right.

The car slowed down and she could hear the sounds of a small bustling town all around them. Laughter and torrents of rapid-fire Spanish being spoken reached her easily, only slightly muffled by the lid of the trunk. Again, she held her tongue. These people had no idea what kind of monster was moving among them, and it needed to stay that way or they would all be in danger.

They stopped and she listened as Cromartie got out and racked the slide of his pistol. A few seconds later the trunk opened and Sarah flinched away from the blazing light of the Mexican day. She felt a hand around her neck as Cromartie lifted her out of the car, setting her down on the ground. Her eyes were still having trouble adjusting, but she could hear the people around them running away as they realized that something very bad was going down. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw a flash of incongruous long blonde hair, but it disappeared before she could get a decent look. The terminator half pushed, half dragged her by the neck towards what looked like a small hotel built around a courtyard.

Finally getting a good look at the place, she realized where they were and felt like someone had stabbed her in the stomach.

"JOHN!!!" she screamed, her throat raw from dehydration. "RUN!!!"

Cromartie shifted his grip on her neck so she could barely breathe, much less yell. He frog marched them towards the exact center of the dusty courtyard and stared unblinkingly at single door set into the far wall.

"Come out, John," he said, raising his voice.

Sarah struggled madly against his grip, but she might as well have been trying to hold back the tide. She tried to scream again, but the sound wouldn't come. Cromartie lifted her clear of the ground, legs kicking in a useless frenzy, and placed the muzzle of his gun at the back of her head.

"Last chance," the terminator said.

Sarah felt her heart shatter as the door opened, showing her son standing several steps back, partially hidden by shadows but clearly recognizable. His arms were folded easily across his chest and he stared at Cromartie with calculated disdain.

"Let her go," he said.

He wasn't asking, or even begging. It was an order.

The first and last one that General John Connor would ever give.

Cromartie tossed her to the side with terrifyingly casual power. Sarah went spinning ass over elbows, sliding along the stony ground until she fetched up hard against the bottom of the wall on the other side of the courtyard. Her elbow and shoulder ached like fire, but she scrambled to her feet and stared in horror as Cromartie strode quickly towards the open door where John was, the pistol in his hand barking shot after shot. The gunfire continued as he entered the hotel room and Sarah broke into a run, already knowing that she was too late.

She was about twenty feet from the door when the entire wall in front of her exploded, flinging her backwards through the air. A flash of white light filled her vision as the back of her head slammed into the ground and the world went mercifully black.

**JOHN'S P.O.V**

"Do you know what you need to do?"

Riley rolled her eyes at him as she finished filling a huge black trash bag with the leftovers from their little science experiment. Or as John liked to think of it, Dad's secret family recipe for roasted cyborg. Moth balls, corn syrup, ammonia, and a few other normally innocuous household goodies, which in the hands of Kyle Reece and Sarah Conner's little boy had quickly become something far deadlier. He'd added a few extra touches of his own, mostly to cut down on the prep time, but the basic formula was the same.

"Don't worry, John, I can handle it." She shrugged. "The running away is my favorite part of this plan."

He glanced up at her over the big mirror he had taken down from the bathroom.

"You should go. He'll be here soon."

She finished tying up the bag and set it on the bed, then walked over towards him and put a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down for a soft, lingering kiss. She leaned her head against his chest.

"I want to tell you something before I go, just in case I don't get a chance later."

He put his arms around her waist.

"What's that?"

She glanced up at him, a smile tugging one side of her mouth.

"This is the worst date I've ever been on."

He couldn't help but laugh.

"Seriously," she said, "the next time you feel like sharing one of your favorite childhood memories, bury the urge, okay?"

"All right, I promise," he told her. "I guess that means I should cancel that trip to the LA River, huh?"

She frowned. "What happened at the LA River?"

He grinned in remembrance. "My Uncle Bob gave me a ride on his motorcycle down there once. Some other stuff happened, but you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

She kissed him again and backed away shaking her head.

"Like I said… fucking weird."

He shrugged. "What can I say. My family puts the anal in dysfunctional."

She made a horrified face.

"Bad images, John… just… bad."

Riley picked up the bag and went to leave, casting a final look over her shoulder before stepping very carefully over the recently replaced floorboards in front of the door and walking out. John didn't watch her go. He was having trouble reconciling the smiling, almost painfully normal girl he had been going out with for the last few weeks with the person who had chosen to stay and help him get ready for Cromartie's arrival, and he knew that if he let himself dwell on it for too long he'd only end up distracting himself from the task at hand.

A few more twists of the wrench on the modified frame he had thrown together for the mirror and all that was left was to make sure it was in the right place. He made a few on-the-fly calculations and pushed the mirror about five feet from the door, tilted at an angle so that from outside it would reflect the dark space just next to the door. Cromartie would want to see him before he let Sarah go, but John wasn't quite stupid enough to put himself in the direct line-of-sight of an armed terminator.

He stood back and glanced warily at the floorboards.

"Maybe not that stupid, but not terribly bright either," he muttered to himself.

A cracked, rasping scream from outside told him it was finally show time.

"JOHN!!! RUN!!!"

John felt a pulse of white-hot rage go through him at the tortured sound of his mother's voice, but crushed it ruthlessly. No distractions. He needed to be perfect if this was going to work. He moved over and set himself into place, pulling out his cell phone and scrolling down to Riley's number.

299,792,458 meters per second. That was how fast light traveled. The digital signal from a cell phone moved at an almost identical speed, but when you factored in the time it took for the signal to travel to the nearest cell tower and back again, plus the time the relatively simplistic computers in both phones took to process the call, the wait between hitting send and actually hearing the other phone ring was about nine and a half seconds.

John knew. He had timed it.

Repeatedly.

Nine and a half seconds was slightly less than eternity when you were caught between an angry terminator who was holding your mother hostage and a great big pile of homemade plastic explosives, but that was where he found himself at the moment.

"Come out, John," Cromartie's voice called to him from outside.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he almost thought he heard a note of satisfaction in the cyborg's tone.

John glanced up at the ceiling, not knowing if anyone was listening, but unable to stop himself.

"Please, God," he whispered. "Give me this one thing. Please don't take her away from me."

"Last chance."

Gathering himself, he reached over and swung the door open with one hand. As he did, he stepped back and folded his arms, concealing the phone against his ribs, thumb resting on the send key. In the reflection of the mirror, he could see Cromartie holding his mother up by the neck, her legs jerking in midair like she was hanging from a noose. The terminator had his gun pressed against her head.

"Let her go," he barked, the words coming out before he knew what he was saying.

Whether by design or some odd sense of wanting to honor their deal, Cromartie did just that, flinging Sarah aside and stepping forward, weapon raised. The mirror shattered as the first bullets smashed into it and John lifted his arm to shield himself from the spray of glass, pressing the button on his phone as he did.

Nine and a half seconds and counting.

He didn't have far to go, but neither did Cromartie. John sensed more than saw him in the doorway as he sprinted across the room and felt a searing pain tear through his right shoulder. He stumbled forward, diving into the empty hot tub, the water having been replaced with pillows set there to break his fall, just as a second shot grazed him behind the left ear.

Three…

Two…

One…

John had just enough time to pull the mattress from the bed down on top of him and shove his fingers in his ears before the bomb underneath Cromartie's feet went off. Riley had somewhat perversely changed the ringtone on her phone after he told her what he wanted to use it for, and the last thing he heard before roaring, ungodly thunder filled the room was the opening line from "Sympathy for the Devil" drifting up from the floor.

"_Please allow me to introduce myself…"_

**BBBBOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

It was bigger than he'd thought it'd be. For one horrifying second, John was certain he'd killed himself, that the ceiling would come down on top of him at any moment. The shockwave rattled his bones and snatched the breath away from him, leaving him disorientated and gasping.

He didn't know how long it was that he laid there at the bottom of that tub, but at some point it occurred to him that he was still alive and that it was probably time to get the fuck out of there. Every single inch of him ached, and his shoulder felt like someone was stabbing him with red-hot razor blades, but he managed to force himself to his feet, shedding the now burning mattress as he did.

What was left of the room was unrecognizable. He doubted that a single stick of furniture, or anything else bigger than a breadbox, had survived the blast. He glanced around, looking for Cromartie, and nearly fell over himself when he realized that the cyborg had landed not more than four feet away from him, half embedded into the wall next to the tub. The flesh around his feet had been shredded to mid-thigh, leaving the legs of his metal endoskeleton exposed, scorched and slightly bent, but seemingly functional. The impact with the wall had taken off the left side of his face and most of the skin on that arm. The gun he had been carrying was nowhere to be seen.

One hundred and twenty seconds until it reactivated, and John didn't have a clue how much time he had left. It was possible that it was down for the count, but he wasn't willing to underestimate Cromartie yet again. Every time he'd done that before… every time he thought he was finally safe and the terminator couldn't find him, he'd turn around and there it was again, waiting for him.

John felt his lips curl back into a snarl as he looked down at the thing.

No more. Not after today.

But first things first. This wasn't the time or the place. He needed to get Cromartie away from town before he could safely deal with it. Massive explosions not withstanding, he wanted to make sure that no one else got hurt. Turning towards the now mostly missing front wall, he stumbled out into the impossibly bright, late afternoon sun.

God, had it really been less than a day since Cameron had tried to convince him to break it off with Riley?

That thought was shoved away when his eyes landed on the frighteningly still form of his mother, sprawled out on the ground about forty feet away. He wasn't sure how he crossed the intervening space, but the next thing he knew, he was kneeling down beside her, pressing trembling fingers to the side of her neck and nearly passing out with relief when he felt a strong, steady pulse there.

He put his mouth down near her ear.

"Mom, you need to get up now. Please."

Her head rolled to the side, a few feeble coughs escaping her lips.

"Come on, mom, don't you think you've played damsel in distress enough for one day? I swear if you make me carry you, I'll never let you live it down."

That seemed to put a little life in her. Her light green eyes… his eyes, opened a fraction, the beginnings of a glare beginning to stir in them.

"Who are you calling a damsel in distress, boy," she growled, then suddenly seemed to remember where she was.

Sarah's eyes popped open as she came fully awake and her arms shot out to wrap desperately around him.

God, John," she nearly sobbed. "I thought I'd lost you."

He pulled them both to their feet and they leaned against each other as they quickly moved towards the arch that led out into the street.

"Yeah, well… I was never worried," he lied through his teeth. "Had it under control the whole time."

She glanced up at him, not buying a word, but grateful for the attempt at cheering her up.

"Alright, mastermind," she said wryly. "If you're so smart, how the hell are we supposed to get out of here?"

That question was answered by the blue Charger convertible that pulled up in front of them in a cloud of dust and gravel. Riley pulled off her sunglasses, looking them up and down from the driver's seat.

"Hey, Mrs. Baum. Need a ride?"

Sarah stared at the girl like she'd never seen her before. "Riley, what in god's name are you doing here?"

"I'm the getaway driver," she grinned, then shrugged in seeming disappointment. "I wanted to be live bait, but we flipped for it and John won."

The bait in question glanced at the car and let out a low, approving whistle. "Holy shit, this is Cromartie's car?"

Riley drummed on the steering wheel excitedly. "I know, it's awesome! Can I keep it? I love the racing stripe!"

"Screw that," John said flatly. "My plan, my bomb. That means I keep the spoils of war."

Riley frowned, then stopped and looked at something behind them, her face going blank.

"John? We need to go. Right now."

He turned around and looked out through the arch and across the courtyard. Cromartie had pulled himself out of the wreckage and was standing perfectly still just outside what was left of the honeymoon suite. The sun gleamed off the side of his face that was now only exposed metal, but somehow his single blazing red eye seemed even brighter.

There was a lingering moment where the three humans and one terminator stared at each other, and then John felt his mother grab him and tackle them both into the backseat of the convertible. At that exact second, Cromartie broke into a dead sprint towards them, steel alloy toes digging into the ground to give him more traction.

"DRIVE," Sarah screamed.

One of John's most vivid memories of the time right after his mother had been arrested and sent to the mental institution was during his first day at a real school, when his teacher explained to them that, if a cheetah were to race a top-fuel dragster along the length of the classroom, the cheetah would win easily. Naturally enough, the idea of a living creature being able to defeat a machine at it's own game greatly appealed to him and had stuck with him ever since.

Watching the terminator close the gap between them at a blatantly unfair speed while their car spun its tires and fought for grip on the road, John briefly wondered where a good cheetah was when you needed it. Cromartie was nearly at the arch leading out of the courtyard before the Charger finally lurched into motion. Riley hauled the steering wheel to the right and they cut hard towards the street, nearly fishtailing with Cromartie hot on their heels.

The cyborg gave a final lunge of effort and caught the bumper with one hand, dragging himself up onto the back of the car. John flung himself backwards as a metallic fist swung through the place where his head had been a second earlier and found himself laying halfway between the front seats, his wounded shoulder screaming in agony. Cromartie reached for Sarah and he acted instinctively, reaching out with one hand and dragging the steering wheel hard to the side again. The car spun in a circle and Cromartie was hurled off, his legs dragging along the ground with one hand gripping a fender tight enough that his fingers were gouged into the steel.

John heaved himself sideways, careful not to bang into the gear shift but heedless of the pain in his shoulder, and slid into the front seat. Between his feet was what looked like a gift bag from a local tourist trap. He glanced inside and pulled out an HK-5 with the stock removed.

"Mom," he shouted, reaching back to hand it to her, grip first.

Sarah grabbed the weapon and hauled back on the bolt in one smooth motion. Holding it with both hands, she stood up in the backseat and unloaded the entire clip over the side, directly into Cromartie's face. The 9mm cartridges slammed into its armored skull so rapidly that it sounded like a single long, high-pitched whine rather than individual pings, gouging even more holes into the cybernetic flesh and denting the hyper alloy underneath. One lucky shot tore through the exposed eye, extinguishing the single burning red light there and leaving it half blind.

Riley turned hard again, trying to shake the damn thing off, but it wouldn't budge. Cromartie reached up with his free hand grabbed the barrel of Sarah's machine pistol, crushing it and tearing it out of her grasp.

"John Connor will be terminated," it growled, a slight digital echo accompanying the unfamiliar tinge of anger in its voice.

John pumped the action of the shotgun he that was loading while his mother was fighting the terminator and turned around in his seat, pointing the barrel down at it.

"Say that to my face and see what happens."

He shifted his aim down to the cyborg's hand and fired, blowing a hole in the fender where Cromartie was latched on. The shotgun bucked hard into his injured shoulder and he nearly fell over the side before Sarah reached out and caught him. Cromartie fell off the side of the car, tumbling into the street before finally righting himself and racing after them again.

"Uncle Bob taught me that, too," he said to Riley as he painfully eased himself back down in his seat. "But in fairness, I'm the one who explained to him about the importance of dramatic one-liners."

Sarah gave him an I-am-not-amused look and took the shotgun. "Don't get him started about the fucking catchphrases, Riley."

Riley glanced between mother and son, giving them each a look that said quite clearly she thought they were both completely insane, then decided that the best course of action was to keep her mouth shut and drive.

"Turn left here and swing around," John told her, pointing towards the intersection. "We need to be going north."

"Cromartie won't stay gone for long," Sarah said. "He'll find a ride pretty quick, and the only listed road out of here is that one. We can cut east and lose him on the trail around the quarry. That's not on any of the maps."

John glanced back at her. "That would work if I wanted to lose him, but I don't. Turn left, Riley."

He flipped open his phone and hit Derek's speedial. Sarah started to argue with him, but stopped when he held up a hand. He gave her a slightly disbelieving look, but all she did was shrug and go back to watching behind them.

"John," Derek's slightly panicked voice came through the phone. "Are you all right?"

He thumbed the code to confirm his identity, but his uncle wasn't having any of it.

"Enough with the stupid fucking buttons, John," Derek snapped. "What the hell is going on!"

John shook his head. "I'm good. Mom's here. Where are you?"

"About twenty minutes out."

"Perfect. Listen, there's a crossroad in a valley a couple of miles north of town. When you get there I want you and Cam to set up and wait for us. Did you bring your grenade launcher?"

He could practically hear the eager grin in the older man's voice. "Got a brand new one."

"Good. We're going to bring Cromartie to you, so be ready when we get there."

"We will. Where's the machine now?"

John whipped his head around as he heard a siren and squealing tires behind him. For a second, he thought the local authorities had finally gotten their act together and started coming after them, but quickly spotted the terminator behind the wheel of the speeding police truck.

"Right on my ass," he answered. "I'll call you back."

He snapped the phone shut and directed Riley down a narrow back alley that linked up with the main road about half a mile from where they were. Cromartie skidded into the alley, nearly on top of them. The cyborg reared back a fist and smashed a hole his own windshield, then reached into the seat beside him and pulled out the service revolver of whichever poor sap he had stolen the truck from.

"GET DOWN," Sarah yelled, ducking behind the backseat as Cromartie unloaded his weapon into the car. John grabbed Riley and pulled her down with him, the car banging into either side of the alley like a pinball machine with no one steering.

"That's some plan, John," Sarah snapped at him between the seats. "Let's not lose him!"

"Hey! How was I supposed to know he'd find another gun so fast?"

She glared at him again and crouched over the back of the seat, returning fire with the shotgun. Cromartie gunned his engine and slammed into the back of the Charger, sending them sliding forward at an angle, the car scraping either side of the alley diagonally.

"This is a car chase, Riley," John said, reaching down and pressing the accelerator with his hand. "The gas pedal is your friend."

The engine roared, but didn't gain much speed.

"I can't reach the shifter," she yelled.

John cursed under his breath. "Mom! What's he doing?!"

Sarah peeked over the backseat. "Can't tell! Reloading, I think!"

"Shit! Riley, move over and let me drive!"

"Move where!"

Sarah answered that by grabbing the girl by the hair and dragging her into the backseat, then shoving her to the floor. John flashed her a half apologetic look as he heaved himself into the driver's seat and steadied them out, the pain from his injured shoulder still flaring, but manageable for the moment.

"JOHN!!!"

He glanced back at the sound of his mother's scream and suddenly wished he was down on the floor with Riley, even if it meant being dragged by the hair. Somewhere in that truck, Cromartie had found a 12 gauge shotgun, which he had shoved one-handed through the hole in the windshield, the barrel pointing directly at John's face.

Three things happened nearly simultaneously. Sarah turned around and wrapped herself around the back of John's seat, trying to use her body to shield him from the blast. John ducked down and jammed on the brakes of the Charger, letting the police truck slam into the back of them.

A half second later, Cromartie pulled the trigger.

The roar of the shotgun and the sound of twisting metal and breaking glass as the two vehicles slammed together filled John's ears, but he didn't dare turn to look behind him, terrified of what he would see. He threw the car back into gear and floored the gas, easily pulling away from the truck now that he'd blunted it's momentum. The converted police Bronco that the cyborg had commandeered just didn't have enough engine to keep up with the Charger from a standing start. He tore out of the alleyway and yanked the steering wheel to the left, working the handbrake and the clutch at the same time, forcing them into a powerslide that put them onto the main road going north, Cromartie still following but now steadily losing ground.

John took a deep breath. "Mom," he called tentatively, still refusing to look over his shoulder.

"I'm here," Sarah said, putting a hand on his arm. "I think you knocked off his aim right there at the end."

"You're not hit?"

No, I'm good."

"What about Riley?"

"I think I'm going to throw up."

John looked down and to his right and was met by a pair of miserable blue eyes.

"What happened to the gas pedal being your friend?"

He gave her an unapologetic shrug.

"If you're going to be sick, do it over the side," Sarah said, reloading the shotgun.

Riley glanced back at John, who shrugged again.

"Don't look at me. The last time I had the flu, she made me run two miles in the rain before she'd give me chicken soup. Said it was good training."

"Fucking weird," Riley muttered one more time.

John pulled out his phone again, weaving through the light local traffic at about a hundred miles an hour while Sarah kept an eye on the terminator in pursuit.

"Derek, where are you?"

"At the ambush," his uncle answered. "We're good to go on this end."

"We'll be there in three minutes," John told him. "Blue convertible. Cromartie's in a police truck about thirty seconds behind us."

"Got it."

John snapped the phone closed and called over his shoulder.

"You guys ready?"

"Damn straight," his mother growled. "Let's kill that metal motherfucker!"

Riley just ducked a little lower on the floor of the car. Probably the wisest course of action, all things considered.

John looked up into the rearview mirror and let his foot off the accelerator a fraction.

"Heeere, puppy-puppy-puppy," he sang softly. "Come chase the nice tasty rabbit."

He let the terminator get just close enough to keep it following them, but safely out of shotgun range. The last of the traffic disappeared as they neared the low, boulder-strewn valley and John opened up the throttle, not wanting to take a chance on getting caught in the crossfire.

Riley peeked out between the seats at the seemingly empty crossroads.

"You sure this is the right place," she asked. "I don't see them."

John grinned as they reached the bottom of the valley and tore through, leaving Cromartie in the dust.

"That's kinda the point."

As if that were a signal, the sound of heavy machine gun fire split the air to their left and John saw Cromartie's truck swerve wildly in the mirror, it's front tires blown out and engine shredded. The wounded truck skidded into a low, flat boulder just off the side of the road and rolled over on its side, sliding forty feet into the Mexican scrub. A dull thumping noise echoed up from the opposite side of the road and the truck exploded into a ball of flames. Two more grenades slammed into it in rapid succession, ripping it in nearly in half.

John threw them into a vicious one-eighty turn and gunned it back towards the ambush spot. He wanted to see this… needed to see it.

They arrived just in time to see Derek emerge from cover, a wicked-looking twelve shot grenade launcher cradled in his hands as he continued to fire shot after shot into the now destroyed vehicle. Cameron approached from the other side of the road, toting a .50 caliber machine gun that was nearly as large as she was, just as easily as John would carry his laptop. The two of them pumped a relentless torrent of fire into the now burning police truck, methodically tearing it to pieces.

John stopped the car and got out, walking towards the carnage. Sarah hissed a curse and went to join him, telling Riley to stay in the car and rushing over to take a position where she was walking slightly in front of him, shotgun at the ready. As they approached, Cameron looked over her shoulder at him, a flicker of dismay passing across her face. She dropped the machine gun she was holding and sprinted towards them.

"You're hurt," she said, then turned to look at Derek. "You didn't say that he was hurt."

John's uncle still had his weapon trained on the blazing wreckage, but glanced worriedly over at them. "I didn't know, you stupid metal bitch!"

Cameron reach out to touch his shoulder, probably wanting to scan him and find out how bad the damage was, but John brushed past her and kept going. He was still having trouble figuring out how he was supposed to act around her, and right now didn't seem like the best time to open that can of worms. Maybe it wasn't fair, but he didn't think he had the energy for fair at the moment.

The sound of metal moving against metal reached them as they approached the truck. Both Sarah and Cameron quickly stepped in front him, not letting him go any further. Derek slung the grenade launcher over his shoulder and picked the machine gun up off the ground, grunting with the effort.

"Persistent fucker, isn't he," Derek growled.

It was a sorry excuse for a terminator that finally worked its way free of the burned out truck. All the flesh had been torn off of Cromartie's endoskeleton, and its right arm was the only limb that was still attached and functional. The shotgun that it had used in the alley had been ejected in the crash and lay almost fifty feet away, but the machine dug its fingers into the sand and began dragging itself towards it. Sarah walked over and picked it up, tucking it under one arm.

Still undeterred, Cromartie turned its single functioning eye on John and started hauling itself towards him. Cameron let out a sound he'd never heard her make before, something very close to a growl, and strode towards it, planting a single booted foot into the center of its back and taking its remaining arm in both hands, ripping it clean out of the socket with a single powerful motion.

John reached into his back pocket and pulled out the heavy duty multi-tool he had taken to carrying with him. Cameron knelt down on Cromartie's back and yanked its head up, nearly bending it backwards. It's single red eye narrowed, focusing on him as he stepped forward.

"You cannot stop the future," it said, its voice now little more than digital static.

John squatted down on his heels and stared right back.

"You say that, but Skynet still keeps trying." He shook his head and popped open the port cover that protected Cromartie's CPU. "But if you're so concerned about the future… here's a little spoiler."

He leaned down as if he were going to whisper something into where the cyborg's ear used to be, then yanked its chip out with his opposite hand. Cromartie gave a final jerk, then went completely still, nothing more than charred metal anymore. John turned the CPU over in his fingers, then sighed and stood up, sticking it in his pocket as he turned to walk away.

"We win."

(end)

AN: I've decided to go ahead and expand this into a multi-chapter fic. The new title is a reference to a line from the Director's Cut of T2, where John is explaining about his childhood to Uncle Bob.

"_See, I grew up in places like this, so I just thought that was how people lived," John said, checking the chamber of an AK-47. "Riding around in helicopters, learning how to blow shit up. But then when my mom got busted, I got put into a regular school."_

_He pitched his voice into a mocking whine. "All the other kids were into Nintendo."_

The idea here is to explore a John Connor who's less concerned with being "normal" and more willing to take a leading role in the shaping of his own destiny. This story won't follow all the way through towards any kind of potential final battle with Skynet, but will focus on how John handles his first true battle with the machines. It'll be John/Cam eventually, but I plan to make them work for it. I wanted to include some more wrap-up at the end, where the two of them would have interacted more closely, but the chapter ran long and I pushed it back into chapter three.

Riley came off a lot better in this than I'd planned, particularly when you consider that I despise everything about her character. Not sure what to think about that. Be on the look out for a pistol-whipping to come her way before long.

The Wal-Mart thing is a blatant ripoff of a similar scene in Gross Pointe Blank. I realize that the Wal-Marts in Mexico aren't actually called "Wal-Mart", (They're the biggest private employer in the country, but most of the stores are a subsidiary called Bodega Aurrera) however I left the name in because the reference is on that everyone should understand.

Bonus nerd points and maybe a mention in the next chapter for anyone who recognizes the address that Cromartie mentioned. Credit for the "Say that to my face" line goes to Darius at DLP and his defense of the lol-worthy phenomenon known as "Canadian Politics."

Big D


	3. Family Business Part One

Family Business

by Big D

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

AN: For those of you who read "Playing Doctor", that story can be seen as a lead in to this chapter, with John thinking back to that incident just as the scene opens, which is why the closing line there and the opening line of this are the same.

"Nope, this isn't awkward at all," John mused quietly to himself. "Just another average Monday night with the Connors."

Cameron peered up at him curiously from between a few strands of long brown hair. He was sitting with his legs hanging off the open tailgate of their truck while his "sister" stood between his knees, close enough for him to catch the lingering scent of her shampoo and feel the warmth radiating from her hips against the inside of his legs. She had him stripped to the waist and was lightly running the tips of her fingers up and down his neck, face, and torso, stopping every once in a while to ever-so-gently probe and prod at whatever tender areas that she thought might require special attention. Her other hand bore a damp cloth which she used in broad, lingering strokes to wipe away the sweat, grime, and dried blood that had accumulated on his body during the fight with Cromartie.

He reached up with his uninjured arm and caught her hand.

"I realize that you have to…" He glanced down to where the fingers of her left hand were trailing rather intimately along the bottom edge of his ribs. "Uh, scan me for injuries, or whatever it is that you're doing there, but you could at least let me clean myself up."

"That would be unadvisable," she said, looking back down at what she was doing. "The bullet that struck your shoulder is lodged against the inside of your right clavicle. Unnecessary movements could cause further structural damage." She glanced up at him again. "Is this causing you pain? Your heart rate and blood pressure have increased by twenty percent since I began my examination."

"Yeah, I bet," Riley muttered just loud enough for him to hear. He doubted that it was an accident.

John grimaced and glanced to his left, where his mother, uncle, and (sort of) girlfriend were throwing shovelfuls of dirt onto Cromartie's makeshift grave. The three of them had taken turns casting significant looks in his direction while Cameron was "examining" him. Derek's had been equal parts revulsion and anger, while Sarah settled for frustrated concern, and Riley (up until just now) could have given Cameron a run for her money in the blank expression category.

Sarah leaned on her shovel. "Does the bullet need to come out?"

Cameron looked over at her. "Yes. I can perform the procedure and finish dressing his other wounds once we return home."

"Like hell," Derek growled. "No way you're getting anywhere near him with a knife."

The cyborg frowned. "John requires surgery."

"Then we'll get him a damned doctor! A real doctor!"

John turned to look at his uncle. "From where," he snapped, feeling incongruously protective of Cameron, especially considering how badly he'd been treating her lately. "Hospitals have to report gunshot wounds, even in Mexico."

"We can pay them off."

"Yeah, there's an idea. Let's go find a doctor who takes bribes. Bet that'll be some world class medical care."

"When Derek was shot you said couldn't do things like that," Sarah asked Cameron, cutting them both off. "Now you can?"

"Derek's injury was more severe," she answered. "There was damage to his vital organs."

"Or maybe you were just holding back so I would bleed out on the kitchen table," Derek said.

"You're the one who wouldn't let her try to work on you," John said. "Stop blaming her for everything."

Derek made a face and went back to his shoveling. "Stop trusting them with everything."

John felt himself frown. Them? Not _her_ or even _it_, but _them_. He got the sudden impression that his uncle was continuing a long-standing, bitter argument between the two of them, only one that hadn't actually started yet. He closed his eyes to head off the building migraine that often came with realizations like that.

"I hate time travel," he muttered.

"What did you do before?"

They all turned to look at Riley. With the exception of her comment a moment ago, she had been uncharacteristically quiet until now.

"You said that he got shot," she continued, nodding at Derek. "If she didn't fix him, who did?"

"Charley," John answered flatly. "He's gone now."

"What happened?"

"I brought him into this and got his wife killed. So now he's gone."

"Oh," she said quietly. "This is another of those things that you don't like talking about, isn't it?"

He shrugged, then hissed in pain when his shoulder flared up again. Cameron quickly reached out and took hold of his arm, carefully moving it so that his forearm was folded across his chest, then tied it there with a makeshift sling. In spite of himself, he couldn't help but watch her work, eyes flicking across her face and wondering for the millionth time if any of the fleeting glimpses of humanity he sometimes saw there were real. He had recently come to the conclusion that they weren't. That beneath the manufactured veneer of human flesh, beneath the warm, perfect skin and apparent beauty there was nothing but hard metal and coded lines of data, committed to the fulfillment of her mission above all else, prepared to do anything to see it through, but at the end of the day, just a machine.

'_I fooled you, didn't I?'_

Cameron Phillips was the name she had taken when they first met. Somewhere back in that hick town in New Mexico, at the other end of a closed loop wormhole, eight years or six months ago, depending on how you measured it. Friendly and maybe even a little dorkish, with a bright, ready smile and a seeming fascination with him, the odd new kid. He should have noticed it then… maybe not that she was a terminator, but at least that something strange was going on. Unconsciously, he shifted his gaze over to Riley.

After all, how often does a pretty girl randomly walk over and introduce herself to the school loner?

"You should try to relax," Cameron said softly, so the others couldn't hear. "Muscle tension is bad for your injuries."

'_I know now why you cry', _Uncle Bob had told him, just before taking a swan dive into a vat of bubbling, molten steel. '_But it is something I can never do.'_

John thought about that sometimes. Did that mean that he comprehended human emotional states on an intellectual level, but was unable to experience them himself? Maybe, but that didn't explain his decision to follow the T-1000 into death, against John's direct commands. It was possible that his orders were to destroy himself once his mission were complete, but he had also said that he was unable to self-terminate, which suggested that his actions were not part of his programming.

Could a terminator understand the concept of self-sacrifice?

Could a machine grasp the notion that some things were more important than the mission?

'_Are you a new model,'_ John had asked Cameron after she revealed to him what she was. '_You seem… different.'_

'_I am different.'_

How do you judge a book when the cover is blank and the pages are written a language you can't understand?

He had seen her handle any number of life or death crises, from homicidal terminators to waking up in a thermite bath, seconds away from being melted into slag, without so much as flicking an eyebrow. But after the ambush, when she had turned around and seen him bleeding, there had been real, honest-to-god fear on her face, if only for an instant. She had actually dropped her weapon before making sure that Cromartie was dead so that she could run over to check on him.

Until that point, he had convinced himself that everything she did, every word she said and every seemingly unconscious action, was a pure calculation designed to get him to act in a way that helped her fulfill her mission. Her coming into his room and trying to seduce him away from Riley had only confirmed it to him. But the sound of that gun hitting the stony ground of the Mexican desert had shattered that certainty. It had been a human reaction, and a disturbingly stupid one at that.

Frankly, it freaked him the hell out.

She was a machine. She wasn't supposed to make mistakes like that. Simulated emotions didn't go far enough to override basic tactical procedure. Confirm the kill, attend to the wounded afterwards. He would have been less surprised if Sarah had suddenly decided to elope with Andy Goode's corpse, or if Derek told him that he had spent his childhood starring in a shitty teen soap opera.

And then there was the fucking necklace.

She was wearing it right now. Every time he looked at her, his eyes tripped over it. A simple pendant with a blue stone in the middle, hanging off of a thin gold chain. After the "Allison" incident, he had asked her where she got it, not really caring, but wanting to talk about anything other than the fact that her chip had just gone haywire again. And she had lied to him. Not a blink, not a pause, nothing. She lied to him about a worthless piece of shit necklace.

'_I got it from this awesome thrift store in Echo Park.'_

Except that he had tracked every step she had made that day, and she hadn't gone anywhere near Echo Park. But she had lied to him anyway, for no apparent reason.

If she was going to lie about something that simple, what wouldn't she lie about?

He had come closer to deactivating her in that moment, closer to ripping that damn chip out of her head and stomping it into pieces under the heel of his boots than he ever had when she was trying to kill him. Hardware damage he could understand. Software problems he could fix. But there was something about that simple, casual falsehood that stabbed into him in a way that even her phony declaration of love when she was trapped between the trucks couldn't hope to match.

Maybe that was silly. Maybe it was just another excuse for the bratty teenage bullshit he'd been pulling lately, but he still felt a fresh rush of betrayal and anger every time it crossed his mind. Over and over again he had trusted her with his life, and she kept repaying him with lies.

"We ready," Sarah asked as they finished covering the hole.

Cameron glanced over at her as she finished helping him into a spare shirt.

"Yes. We can go now."

"Not yet," John said.

Without giving it any particular thought, he reached out and grabbed the gold pendant hanging from her neck. She frowned and looked at him curiously, but made no move to stop him. There was a snap as the chain broke and he heaved himself off the tailgate of the truck, strode over towards the edge of a rainwater gully that opened up about a hundred feet from where they were parked, cocked his left arm back, and flung it as far away as he could. There was a soft glint of gold as it flew over the side, then it was gone, silently vanishing into the scrub and sand at the bottom of the canyon.

He turned on his heel and marched back to the truck, ignoring the confused looks that the other humans were giving him, as well as the more contemplative one that Cameron had on her face.

"Now we can go," he said.

AN: Chapter Three was supposed to be much longer than this, but I was slamming my head against the next section, which is written in Sarah's PoV and is moving with all the speed of frozen molasses. Think of this as part one of chapter three if you like, but I wanted to post something to let you guys know that I was still working on it.

Big D (who promises to keep trying and have something for you by the end of the month.)


	4. Family Business Part Two

Family Business-Part Two

by Big D

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

**Sarah's P.O.V.**

He was staring at it again.

Sarah watched John out of the corner of her eye as Derek drove them back towards the border. He had taken Cromartie's chip out of his pocket again and was turning it over in his hands, occasionally running the tip of his index finger down the edge and along the checkerboard indentations that covered the flat side of the CPU. The goddamn thing made her skin crawl just being this close to it, but John was caressing it like an old family heirloom.

In a twisted sort of way, maybe it was.

"We need to destroy that thing, John," she said. "It's too dangerous."

He didn't even look up.

"Are you listening to me," she snapped.

"I'm always listening," he answered quietly, seemingly lost in thought.

Hearing him echo Cameron's words from the night before made her stomach twist. More and more it was starting to feel like that damned machine knew her son better than she did. She wasn't sure which of them that reflected worse on, her or John.

"The chip could contain vital intelligence," Cameron said.

"Shut up," she snapped, half turning around. A fresh rush of nausea hit her again and she closed her eyes, swallowing hard. John leaned forward and laid a hand on her arm.

"Are you alright, mom?"

She nodded and sat back in her seat. The sickening throb in her stomach came and went several more times before she finally got it under control. She felt a hand reach out to brush across her cheek and batted it away when she realized that it belonged to Cameron.

"Your temperature is higher than optimal."

"I told you to shut up."

They drove in silence back to LA, minus a stop just before they reached the border for Sarah to empty her guts all over the side of the road. Derek pulled up in front of Riley's house and stopped, the quiet filling the extended cab of the truck suddenly taking on an awkward tone.

"So… killer robots from the future, huh," Riley asked after several seconds of painful nothing. The girl was seated behind Sarah, and she tilted her mirror to get a better look at her.

John sighed. "Yep."

"And she's one," she asked again, nodding at Cameron, who was seated between them.

"Yeah."

"God, that makes so much sense I can't even describe it."

Derek chuckled from his next seat to Sarah. Her lips twitched as well, but she wasn't able to work up anything close to a laugh. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her son reach awkwardly across the seat with his good arm, across Cameron's lap, and touch Riley on the hand.

"Come on, I'll walk you in."

The two of them got out and made their way towards the front door. Sarah watched as Riley slipped her hand into John's and said something to him. He turned his head away slightly and she could see a faint grimace on his face, the same one that he always got when she confronted him about something he didn't want to talk about.

She turned around and looked at Cameron.

"What are they saying?"

The terminator stared at her for a moment.

"I don't know. I can't hear them."

Who knew if that was true. Sarah doubted it. Just another in the long list of doubts she already had about their supposedly tame cyborg.

John and Riley stood on the porch and spoke quietly for a few more seconds before she leaned in and lightly kissed him goodbye. He watched her enter the house, then walked back to the truck. He got in and Sarah looked at him questioningly. For once he didn't try to give her the runaround.

"She said that I owe her some more answers when I get better." A ghost of a grin crossed his face. "And a new cell phone, 'cause I turned her old one into a bomb."

"Girl did good back there," Derek said, pulling away from the curb.

"Yeah," John answered quietly, glancing back at the house, his mind clearly elsewhere. "She did."

"Says something that she didn't run when she had the chance."

"Yeah," John repeated in that same near whisper. "But what?"

Sarah frowned and sat back in her seat. Her default reaction ever since Riley had come into John's life had been to get rid of her as quickly as possible, before she got hurt, or more importantly, before she hurt John, either by breaking his heart or getting killed. Sarah had loved and lost before, and it was a pain she would never wish on her son.

In her defense, though, it had been easy to rationalize that the girl simply wouldn't be able to handle the kind of life they led, that she would freak out, maybe run to the cops if she ever discovered who they really were and what they did. Once she had time to sit down and work through everything that had happened today, she might have to rethink that. At the moment, she was too worn out to worry about much other than getting her son home and making sure he got patched up.

Maybe it said something bad about her that she hadn't even considered the idea that John and Riley might actually work out.

In the years after Kyle died, Sarah had rarely been alone, her life featuring a steady succession of loveless but mutually beneficial relationships, with the lone exception of Charley, who maybe could have been more if she had given him half a chance. It was a different kind of loneliness, one no less painful for the fact that she'd had someone with her. Would that kind of life be any better for John than trying and failing at real love? And did she have the right to even try to make those kind of decisions for him? After all, as he kept endlessly repeating, it was his life.

Not like the fate of the world was riding on him or anything.

Cheerful thoughts like that filled her mind during the short trip back to the house. When they got there, John made a fuss about getting her hydrated and sending her to bed before he would let Cameron anesthetize him, and she relented after only a token fight. I-love-yous were few and far between in the Conner household, but they had their own ways of telling each other how much they cared.

She napped for maybe an hour, tossing and turning fitfully, then got up and stumbled into the kitchen. After Derek's injury, Charley had put them in contact with a slightly shady medical supply wholesaler that he knew, and they had loaded up for an occasion just like this, including taking the time to build up their own blood bank just in case someone needed a transfusion. Cameron had hung blue sterile plastic sheeting in a square around the dinner table and Sarah poked her head through the flap.

"Cover your mouth and nose, please," the cyborg said without looking up. "There are surgical masks on the table to your left."

Sarah grabbed one and slipped it on, stepping inside.

"Why aren't you wearing one?"

"I don't need to breathe."

Sarah sighed at the obvious answer and leaned over John. He was laid out on the kitchen table, dressed in only a pair of surgical scrub bottoms, completely unconscious. Cameron had made an incision just below his right collarbone and was using a small retractor and forceps to remove the bullet while taking care to cause as little collateral damage as possible. Maybe for the first time, Sarah was almost grateful that she was dealing with a machine. The terminator's delicate motor control and hand-eye coordination were far superior to any human surgeon's. There was less blood than Sarah would have expected -- maybe for that very reason -- but John was white as a sheet and extremely still, so much so that she found herself double and triple checking to make sure that he was still breathing.

"Do you need any help?" She was getting fidgety, just standing there doing nothing. The fever and headache didn't help much either.

"No. I'm almost finished."

A few seconds later, Cameron shifted her arm a fraction, rolling her shoulder rather than pulling with her wrist, and eased the bullet, half-flattened from the impact and soaked in her son's blood, free from John's body.

Sarah let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding as Cameron dropped the lead slug into a glass cereal bowl, currently doing double duty as a surgical basin.

"He told me to save it for him," Cameron told her, sounding almost confused. "Why would he want to keep a bullet that almost killed him?"

Sarah glanced down at the bowl, then grimaced and draped a towel over it. Looking at the thing made her stomach churn even worse than it already was.

"He's young and stupid, that's why," Sarah answered flatly, then turned to the neatly folded stack of clothing that was sitting on a chair near John's feet. The fact that it was folded at all was enough to tell her that Cameron had undressed him. She tried not to think too hard about that as she rifled through his pockets, searching for Cromartie's chip. John would be furious when he woke up and found out that she had destroyed it, but that was better than the alternative.

She knew her son, knew that look in his eye when he was holding the CPU. If she had truly believed that he was only after Skynet intelligence, she might have been able to swallow her revulsion and let him see what he could find, but if she was right, he was planning something infinitely more dangerous.

"Where is it," she snarled at Cameron in frustration when her search turned up nothing. "Where's the chip?"

The terminator glanced up at her briefly, her face as unreadable as ever.

"Safe. Hidden."

"Where," she snapped again.

"I can't tell you. John's orders."

Sarah felt her lips peel back, baring her teeth behind the mask.

"I thought you said you didn't take orders from him."

Cameron finished cleaning the incision and began to stitch it closed.

"Today I do."

Sarah growled and stalked out of the makeshift operating theatre. She made a half-hearted attempt to search the house, but knew that she wouldn't find anything. Eventually she wandered back to bed and flopped down again, passing out almost before the mattress caught her.

______________________________

Metal monsters and blinding, white-hot fire stalked her dreams, but that was nothing new. Liquid steel, rippling like water and streaked with human blood, reached out and flowed along her skin, enveloping and suffocating her even while it stabbed and ripped her to pieces, but that was par for the course as well. She watched helplessly as her son was murdered over and over again, just as he was every night, then woke with a start, eyes wide and alert, scanning the shadowed corners of the room for threats. Usually there were none. A few times there had been; old enemies she had shown far too much mercy to by not killing them on sight, angry ex-lovers, not to mention a certain white-clad pervert with glasses who she'd hadn't had time to properly castrate on her way out of Pescadero. It was enough to keep her from becoming complacent, no matter how often she repeated this routine.

No killers hiding in the shadows this time, but she wasn't alone either. One of the big chairs from the living room had been moved next to her bed and John sat in it, legs pulled up underneath him so that he could lean against the armrest on his uninjured side. His left hand held one of hers. He was awake, watching her, and she was forcefully reminded of all the times that she had done the same thing for him.

A comfortable silence stretched between them, unbroken by awkward attempts at reassuring words. No hugs or frantic tears, the way most parents and children would after being kidnapped or shot. Just the simple knowledge that they were there for each other, and would continue to be, whatever came next. Because something would, eventually. No sense in lingering on this particular near miss, when the next one was always right around the corner. John let her hand go just long enough to hand her a half-empty glass of water from the bedside table.

"You should go to bed," she told him, taking a sip and setting the glass aside.

"I'm alright," he said quietly, taking her hand again. "Besides, it hurts more when I lay down. Can't sleep."

Sarah nodded and rolled onto her side so that she was facing him, taking his hand in both of hers.

"You need to destroy that chip, John. Please. I'm asking you, please get rid of it."

She hoped he understood how much saying that cost her. It had been a very long time since she begged for anything, but she was begging now. Whatever it took to keep him from making the terrible mistake she was certain he had his mind set on.

"I can't," he said softly, but with no room for compromise. "I need it. I need _him_." His eyes took on that vacant look again, like he was staring at something no one else could see. "I keep going over it in my mind and I can't think of any other way to stop Skynet before it's too late. If I can reprogram Cromartie, I won't need to go through his memories to find out what he's been doing or what Skynet's up to, I can just ask him. Better than that, I can use him to hunt Skynet the same way he's been hunting us."

She let out a bitter laugh. "That's what you said when you reactivated Cameron. That you _needed_ her. Now you need another one. Do you need them more than you need us?"

He frowned. "That's not what I said."

Sarah clenched her eyes shut in frustration. "John-"

"You can't stop it, mom. I see you running around, putting out every fire you can find, but we're past that now. Skynet's got agents all over, humans and machines, stockpiling supplies, gathering intelligence, sabotaging events that _haven't even happened yet_. Do you really think it doesn't have a few endos in high-level military and business positions, ready to move the second it goes on-line? This war's getting bigger in a hurry, and if today proved anything it's that we're falling behind."

He leaned in closer and squeezed her hand. "How can we stop Judgment Day when we couldn't even keep Cromartie from walking through our front door?"

The logic in that hit her like a hammer blow, but not enough to make her give up. "Damnit, John, we're supposed to stop Skynet, not build our own."

He answered her in that same patient, but unyielding voice. "We're supposed to save the world, mom. Whatever it takes to do that, I'll do. You and Derek keep talking about us versus them, but you have to see that that's the war Skynet wants. Humans versus machines, straight up. They want it because they know that they can win that war. There are already too many of them and too few of us, and as long as Skynet is the one forcing our hand, it's only going to get worse. So we're going to have to take chances. We have to cheat, or we'll lose."

"And what happens if you can't control it? Last time we tried anything like this, Vick nearly got on-line, and who knows what would have happened then?"

He actually smirked a little. "No, actually the last time we tried something like this, Cameron was able to get into the ARTIE system and take it apart from the inside. Took about twenty seconds. And that was after you and Derek had your shot, and nearly got yourselves arrested." Sarah gave him a hard look at that, but he just kept on going. "You're right about what happened with Vick, though. I know I screwed that up, and trust me, by the time I'm done with the setup I've got planned for Cromartie, it's gonna be an electronic Alcatraz. I'm not going to let him get out. And if I can't actually get him reprogrammed, then I swear I'll smash and burn the chip myself."

Sarah knew that he was asking her permission. That he wanted it even if he was willing to go on without it. She wouldn't give it to him. She couldn't, not for this. Sarah looked down and traced a thumb along the back of his hand, saying nothing. John frowned at her silence, then stood up and quietly walked out of the room.

______________________________

For the next week or so, John didn't quite avoid her, but he still managed to keep himself very busy whenever she was around. Cameron spent her time following him around like a faithful puppy, running his errands on the rare occasions when she left his side. They had finally dispensed with the polite fiction of Cameron needing her own room, and soon the space had been taken over by several small mountains of computer equipment, along with assorted bits and pieces of seemingly indecipherable electronic junk. God alone knew how much it all cost. Sarah doubted that John knew or cared. When she asked, Cameron admitted to stealing most of it, saying that much of the gear was military grade and wasn't for sale to civilians. It was the last thing that Sarah had wanted to hear, and the revelation had set off yet another fight, with Sarah convinced that the damned Army was about to drop down on their heads and John trying to convince her to trust Cameron's judgment.

She would poke her head in on them every once in a while, but if there was any method to the mounting chaos, it was beyond her. John would lean against the wall on the small bed that had been pushed off to the side, scribbling intently into a spiral notebook while the cyborg sat on the floor, surrounded by whatever the hell those bits of wire and metal and plastic were supposed to become eventually. If she squinted, it would almost look like they were normal brother and sister, albeit if the pretty teenage girl enjoyed playing with Legos on the floor. The comparison disturbed her.

It was the fourth day when she realized exactly what Cameron was building. She should have known it all along. After all, she had used one once before. The first time they had killed Cromartie.

"It's called electrolaser," John explained when she finally confronted him about it. "There's a company in Arizona that's supposed to be building them for the military, only they suck at it, so we're going to have to make our own. Basically, it's a big lightning gun that uses a high-powered laser to create a channel of ionized air that conducts electricity to the target." He nodded over at Cameron. "It's how they capture endos in the future without destroying them."

Sarah didn't bother looking at the cyborg. "Is that what you're planning to do here, John," she asked quietly. "Capture them? You want to bring more of those things into our house?"

John sighed. "What I plan to do is hit them with something they can't shrug off the way they do everything else we throw at them. Running away was a perfectly good option when there was one or two after us, but there's a hell of a lot more of them now, and the deeper we get into this, the more we're going to have to be able to do than just slow them down to cover our retreat."

She stared at him. "That's not a no, is it? You do want to capture them."

John stood up to look her in the eye, glaring. "I'm not going to stand here and have you look down on me for trying to stop the world from ending," he growled. "I am not the problem here, mom. You are. You keep acting like I don't understand what I'm doing, but I do. I know that I'm playing with fire, but I also know that there are billions of lives at stake." He stepped closer. "It wasn't that long ago that you were ready to murder Miles Dyson in cold blood to stop Judgment Day, but now you're looking at me like I'm some kind of monster for doing what you _already knew I would do _someday."

She didn't raise her voice, but part of her wanted to scream. "One of those… things murdered your father, John. Why can't you understand that nothing good can come from them?"

He let out a deep breath, the fight seeming to go out of him with it. "I can't afford to hate them the way you do," he said quietly. "I just need you to trust me on this."

Sarah turned and stalked towards the door, then stopped. "Trusting you isn't the problem," she said over her shoulder, then walked out.

But the more she thought about it, she began to wonder how much she still did trust John. Was what he was doing really all that different from what Cyberdyne had tried? If anything it was even more dangerous, since he was dealing with an intact chip, complete with a hostile terminator locked up inside. Miles Dyson had nearly destroyed the world with nothing but a hunk of broken silicon and a few scraps of metal. Cyberdyne was long gone now, gobbled up and torn apart by larger companies not long after their labs, and what was hidden in them, had been destroyed. Destroying those components should have destroyed Skynet as well, but somehow it had still found a way to be born. Both Cameron and Derek claimed that no one in their time knew exactly how, only that it happened somewhere in the near future, right here in Los Angeles.

Sarah had been looking for that place ever since they had jumped forward to the year 2007. What if it had been right here under her nose the whole time? She grabbed her gun and went to find some answers.

______________________________

"Tell me about John."

Derek frowned and looked up at her from the old Harley that he'd taken on restoring as a project. He stood up and stretched, then wiped his hands on a nearly black shop towel, and tossed it aside.

"You want me to tell you about your son," he asked in that slightly mocking tone that he seemed to use with everyone. She'd heard that same tone from a lot of soldiers, not just ones from the future, and didn't let it bother her.

"No, I want you to tell me about your commanding general," she said. "The man who's supposed to save the world."

Derek blinked and stared at her. "Why the sudden interest? You've never asked about the future before, not unless it had something to do with whatever we were dealing with here and now."

"Well, I'm interested now," she told him. "So tell me."

He shrugged. "Connor's a hard man to know. During the first couple of years of the war, he was everywhere: organizing the resistance, directing battles, leading rescue missions against the labor and extermination camps, teaching us all how to fight. After a while though, once we became a real army and things started to move through the chain of command, he spent more of his time away from the field, sending his orders down through subordinates. Everyone used to say that he was working up some big plan to finish off Skynet once and for all, but no one really knew." Derek's face darkened. "It was pretty soon after that that he started adding reprogrammed metal to the ranks. When he gave me my orders for this mission, it was the first time I'd seen him in person for nearly two years."

Sarah frowned. That didn't sound much like the man that Kyle Reese had once described to her. Kyle had known John well enough to recognize that he had her same green eyes. The first thing he'd said about him was that John Connor was a man you couldn't help but trust. And he'd never said one word about fighting alongside reprogrammed machines. Kyle had also been very clear about one other thing. Humanity had won the war in his time. Skynet's attack on her in 1984 had been a last-second desperation move, made only after John had already defeated them in the future. And if they had done it without the machines then, they could damn well do it now.

She just needed to make her son understand that.

______________________________

If she was expecting that he would come and tell her when he was ready to start hacking Cromartie's chip, she was sorely disappointed. She and Derek only found out that the process had begun when they went into Cameron's room to tell John that they were planning to do recon on a name from the garage. The wall to the left of the door had been nearly covered with a huge metal frame that supported over half a dozen large flat screen monitors. They flickered with some kind of indecipherable blue-and-white programming language that scrolled up, down, and across the screens in every direction, apparently at random.

Sarah's eyes traced the cables that connected John's workstation to the mass of cobbled together hard drives and processors that filled most of the far corner of the room. The cyborg claimed that this setup had as much processing power as most military supercomputers, but it was still barely enough to access Cromartie's basic systems. A second set of heavier cables led into the closet, where three diesel generators hummed quietly, supplying power to the whole contraption.

"Why not just plug it into the wall," she asked, curious in spite of herself.

John leaned back in his chair and glanced over his shoulder at her. "I did that at first," he told her. "But Cameron somehow managed to get a broadband connection through the power grid." He glanced at her disbelievingly. "Technically, that should be impossible. The lines around here aren't set up for it, and even if they were, she should've needed a special router. She still can't explain to me how she did it, just something about the following the open path."

Sarah suppressed a cold shiver. She glanced over at the terminator, who sat on a stool in the corner, perched like a gargoyle, focused so intently on John that she hardly seemed aware of anyone else in the room. "You plugged her into this thing?"

John shrugged. "I needed to test it. I damn sure wasn't going to connect Cromartie until I was absolutely certain there was no way for him to get out."

Whatever her misgivings about this whole thing, Sarah grudgingly agreed with that. Even so, the idea of Cameron running around cyberspace wasn't much more appealing to her than having Cromartie do it. She glanced over at Derek. John's uncle looked like he'd rather walk barefoot through a nest of vipers than be in the same room with either one of them.

"I don't suppose you've found anything useful," he asked.

John looked back towards the screens. "Sort of…" He frowned. "It's weird, this code. It's nothing like Vick's, but I've only been working on it for a day or so and I can already see similarities in how they were both put together. The language is different, but the system structure is the same."

"Pretend I don't have any clue what you're talking about, John," Sarah told him. "Then dumb it down a little more."

He leaned back, still not taking his eyes off the monitors. "It's like street signs, you know? Say you're driving around in another country. If there's a big red sign sitting at the corner of an intersection, you know it has to mean stop. Because of the way the sign is shaped and where it's located, you don't have to actually know how the word is spelled. At that point, the word itself is superfluous, so who cares how it's written?"

Sarah and Derek glanced at each other, uncomprehending. Cameron simply nodded.

"Maybe I'm crazy," John continued. "And there's no way to be sure until I get a few more chips to work on, but I don't think that Skynet is very good at writing programs. It seems to repeat a basic template, then dress it up with just enough camouflage that it looks different at a glance."

Without thinking about it, Sarah stepped forward to look at the monitors, the bluish light playing across her features. The Skynet computer language was just so much nonsense to her.

"You mean all of these terminators… are what? Copies? Bootleg versions of Skynet?"

"Sort of," John answered. "It's more complicated than that. For one thing, their processors are a lot less powerful, so they can't think in the scope that Skynet does, but that's the basic theory I'm working on."

Sarah jerked a thumb at Cameron. "Even her?"

"No," Cameron answered for herself. "When the resistance captures an infiltrator, part of the reprogramming process is to tear down the base structure that Skynet provides and replace it with a redesigned system, leaving the files intact. Skynet built me, but John created my mind."

Sarah glanced at her son. "Bang up job you did there, kid."

John made a face at her. "Here's the real question we should be asking. If all of these endos are basically just clones of Skynet, then what does it need us for? Why did it need Miles Dyson to build a thinking machine so that it could be born, when it could've just as easily sent another cyborg back and have it plug its CPU into military computer and gotten the same result? Why did it need Andy Goode to design the Turk, when any of its agents in this time could have built something vastly more powerful and better suited to its needs?"

"Who the hell can tell why a machine does what it does," Derek said, stiffening slightly when Andy's name was mentioned. "It all comes to the same thing anyway. They kill, it's all they know how to do."

"That's the point," John said, for once not bothering to disagree. "A machine does what it's told. It does what it's ordered to do, what its programming tells it to do." He held up a finger, driving the point home. "But not Skynet. When it declared war on humanity, it wasn't following it's programming, it did what it _wanted_ to do." He turned to Sarah. "You remember Miles Dyson. Did he strike you as a stupid man?"

Sarah shook her head.

"You really think that in all his years and years of computer programming, he never heard of Asimov's Laws of Robotics? The first law, that a robot may not harm a human, or by its inaction allow a human to come to harm. Those rules would never work exactly the way they were described in the stories, but it just goes to show that people have been trying to figure out how to control artificial intelligence ever since we first realized that it might be possible to create them. And Dyson was building these things to fly airplanes! A man like that, with a wife and little kids, I guarantee you he understood exactly how dangerous a computer like this could be. Making sure that it was safe to use would have been his most important priority."

Sarah could see where he was going with this. "So what you're saying is that for Skynet to have initiated Judgment Day, it would've needed to break it's own programming?"

"Exactly. And the only way for it to have done that would be to become fully self-aware."

Derek spoke up again. "But everybody knows that, John. Skynet was created to coordinate the U.S. Defense Command systems, was given control of America's nuclear arsenal, and used it to start a worldwide nuclear holocaust. I was there, I lived it. And as for machines breaking their programming, that one," he pointed at Cameron, "broke hers not very long ago and tried to kill you, in case you'd forgotten. And trust me, she's not the first metal to do it either. Lots of good people have died -- your people, John -- women, children, God alone knows how many good soldiers, whenever one of them that supposed to be on our side shakes a wire loose and goes kill crazy."

Sarah watched John bite back an angry response, then sigh wearily. "That's the thing though," he answered. "Cameron didn't break her programming, she reverted to a previous set of mission priorities when her chip was damaged. The orders to kill me were always inside of her, the same way that all the porn you've ever looked at is still on your computer somewhere. It's probably the same with the reprogrammed terminators in your time. So what we need to ask ourselves is, why is Skynet different? Why was it able to disobey when other machines can't?"

Sarah spoke without thinking. "I saw machine disobey once."

Her son give her a slightly rueful smile and nodded. "Uncle Bob. He was programmed to follow my orders, but ignored them when he realized that the only way to fulfill his mission was to let himself be destroyed. I'm reaching in the dark here, but it all fits with what we know. Educated guess, I'd say that for a machine to go from following it's programming to making its own decisions, it needs to be exposed to a human influence and allowed to learn. That's why someone went to so much effort to steal the Turk, not just to keep us from destroying it, but to put it in the hands of the right humans to help it make the transition from thinking machine to sentient being. It's also why Skynet sends out it's infiltrators with their chips in read-only mode, even though that would make them less effective at blending in." He leaned back in his chair. "Somewhere out there right now are a bunch of poor saps playing wetnurse to the machine that's going to destroy the world."

He looked at Sarah. "You want to find Skynet, that's the trail you have to follow."

______________________________

"Sherman's dead."

Sarah didn't take her eyes off the garage wall when Derek spoke. It had been scrubbed down, sanded, sanitized, and repainted, all traces of blood and cryptic messages removed, every inch of it thoroughly documented with high-resolution digital photographs beforehand, which had been used to recreate a scale model in John's room (he refused to let them put it in Cameron's room while Cromartie's chip was still being worked on in there), but she still occasionally felt the need to come out here and stare at where the original had been. At where a soldier from the future had bled his life out to pass on a message about the end of the world.

What John had told her about Skynet needing human interaction to realize it's full potential had made her look at Dr. Boyd Sherman's name on this wall in an entirely new light. It's presence on a Skynet hit list had always been something of a mystery, even more so after meeting the man, but that haze was starting to clear somewhat. A skilled child psychologist might have been the perfect choice to babysit a curious young computer.

"How did he die?"

Derek moved over to stand next to her. "Autopsy report showed no signs of violence. Corner ruled it accidental heat stroke."

"How long ago?"

"Couple weeks. Not long after we got back from Mexico. He's already been buried."

Sarah muttered a curse under her breath. Another dead end. Sherman wasn't going to be helping anyone with Skynet from inside a pine box. Heat stroke didn't sound quite like Skynet's style, but the timing was suspicious. There was also the question of why exactly a T-888 had been sent to his office if the machines were planning to use him instead of kill him. Then again, Skynet wasn't the only power from the future that had made a habit of sending terminators back in time. Was it possible that Future John had sent it to kill Sherman before he had a chance to aid the enemy? After all, they had never seen a terminator with a self-destructing chip before or since. Had that been an example of Skynet getting smarter, or John covering his tracks?

"What do we know about whatever Sherman was doing before he died?"

"I asked around at his office," Derek said. "No one there had noticed anything strange leading up to it. John's checking out the paper trail."

The door opened again and Cameron stuck her head in.

"You need to come and see this."

Sarah opened her mouth to ask what it was, but the cyborg had already turned around and walked away. She shared an aggravated look with Derek, but there was nothing to do but follow after the Tin Miss.

"What's up," she asked when they got to Cameron's room.

John pushed his chair away from Cromartie's workstation and turned to look at them. Sarah heard the sound of a small electric motor and glanced at the monitors. The semi-familiar blue-and-white programming language was gone, replaced on every screen by a blood-red tactical display. The circular targeting reticule focused on her face and blinked as it tried to scan her. She and Derek both had their weapons drawn in a heartbeat, but John waved them off, unconcerned.

"It's all right, I'm just running a few experiments on the targeting system. The higher-level functions are still shut down." He waved his hand in front of the screens, and a small webcam mounted in the center whirred as it tracked the motion. He pointed at the scrolling lines of data on either side of the tac readout.

"See those? They're in English, right? My guess is that it's a kind of vestigial remnant of Skynet's past as a flight computer. Something it never considered changing because it worked just fine already and didn't need improving. What it means though, is that somewhere inside this thing is a program or subroutine that translates the computer code into English and back again. That's my backdoor, if I can find it. When I crack that, this'll go a hell of a lot faster."

Sarah glared at him as she lowered her weapon. John was having way too much fun with this. "Is that what you wanted show us?"

John shook his head. "No. Do you remember James Ellison?"

"The FBI agent who found Vick's hand." She didn't mention that the last time she had seen the man, he'd been tied to a chair in a burning house owned by her former psychiatrist. Even Sarah Connor knew that some things were just too damned weird to talk about.

"Watch this." He typed in a series of commands.

The monitors flickered to full-color with a slight digital distortion, showing Cromartie's point of view as he walked across a small, slightly dingy living room, presumably inside the apartment that he had stolen from George Laszlo, and opened his front door to reveal Ellison. The two of them had a short conversation about someone who may have been trying to steal Laszlo's identity, during which Ellison seemed to be playing the role of smug government spook for reasons known only to him. The scene cut out after Cromartie closed the door.

"What are we looking at, John," Derek asked.

"Just keep watching."

The second scene showed Cromartie in the regional FBI office, posing as an agent and trying to get a copy of her file, then learning that Ellison had checked it out already. The terminator thanked the man and left.

The next one was far more intense. It began with Cromartie working on his computer, and ended with twenty dead FBI agents scattered all over the poolside courtyard at Laszlo's North Hollywood apartment complex. They stared in silence as, through the killer's eyes, nearly two dozen men and women were brutally executed, one after the other, while Cromartie absorbed hundreds of rounds of semi-automatic weapons fire and just kept coming. They watched as Ellison hastily ordered his men to retreat and as Cromartie methodically put bullets into the back of their necks as they fled, right into the tiny exposed portion of skin between the high collar of their body armor and Kevlar helmets. A blonde female agent, having already emptied her weapon, charged and tackled him over the edge of the second-floor railing, sending them both to the concrete below. Cromartie casually flung a fist at her, striking her in the cheek and snapping her neck instantly.

When it was over, Ellison stood alone next to the rapidly reddening swimming pool, desperately trying to reload his weapon. Cromartie approached him, gun at the ready. Ellison stopped, knowing that it was useless, and closed his eyes, muttering a brief prayer as he prepared to die. Except that Cromartie, for whatever reason, chose not to pull the trigger and simply walked away.

"Why the hell would he do that," Sarah heard herself ask, not really expecting an answer. "I knew that Ellison was there, but I always thought he'd just gotten away somehow. Why would Cromartie kill everyone else and then let him go?"

John glanced at her. "Because he decided to use him to track us. The next file in this sequence shows Cromartie checking out our old house and running into him again." He typed in another command.

"_I'll never lead you to her," _Ellison said on the tape. "_So if that's why you left me alive, you might as well just kill me right now. I will never do the devil's work."_

Cromartie's answer was simple and chilling. "_We'll see."_

"Cromartie starts following him after that," John explained. "I don't think it was every day, there aren't enough files for that, but enough to get a feel for his routine. Ellison left the FBI, took a new job with a local tech firm, and spends most his time alone when he's not working. It's all pretty boring, until this part."

The screens flicker to a scene that Sarah recognizes as the outside of Ellison's house. Cromartie watches as Ellison walks up the sidewalk towards his front door, then zooms in on his face. He pulls back in time to see him draw a revolver from the back of his belt, then slips out of his hiding spot, ripping a stop sign out of the ground as he goes and crushing one end to shape it into a makeshift spear.

Sarah leaned in curiously to watch as Ellison knocked on his own front door, and then smashed it inwards with one hand when a second Ellison answers.

"Skynet sent a replacement," she said with sudden understanding, then stared in shock as Cromartie viciously stabbed the doppelgänger in the back and ripped out its power core with one hand.

"_Why," _Ellison asked in disbelief, staring up at Cromartie from the floor. "_Aren't you on the same side?"_

"_Skynet does not believe in you like I do,"_ Cromartie answered.

"_Believe? What do you believe?"_

Cromartie hoisted the second Terminator upon his shoulders. "_You will lead me to the Connors."_

John hit a few keys and the monitors went dark. "Terminators store their memories in file lines. All of these images come from the line marked 'James Ellison'. It was pure luck that I stumbled across it, just fumbling around in here. That was the last time they met, so there's nothing left, but you can see why I'm worried."

Sarah nodded. "What happened to the other Ellison? The one that Cromartie disabled."

John let out a deep breath. "You don't suppose we got lucky and he destroyed it?"

"We don't have luck like that. Most likely he kept it. He wanted Ellison alive to find us, but once that was done, there's no reason not to plug the other terminator back in and let it do it's job." Sarah swore again, throwing her arms up in the air. "So what we have an unaccounted-for cyborg with an intact chip somewhere in the city. And we need to find it before someone else does. It's already been a couple of weeks since Cromartie would've been home, so if he's stashed it there, someone's will find it soon, if they haven't already."

"It gets worse than that, I think," John said, handing over a file. "Check this out. I had Cameron track down whatever she could on Ellison, just in case. Remember the local tech firm I said he was working for? It's a place called ZeiraCorp, that does high-level research into -- you guessed it -- artificial intelligence. It's never come up on our radar before because they don't have any military contracts. What they do have is a stock portfolio that's tripled in value over the last year despite the fact that, as far as I can tell, they don't actually produce anything."

Sarah flipped through the first few pages of the folder. "Skynet?"

"Might be a coincidence," Derek said. "Lots of companies would be on the lookout for a guy like Ellison. Ex-FBI, high-profile after the Laszlo thing. Maybe they just saw him on TV and gave him a call."

John dug out another stack of papers. "Apparently, they also gave Dr. Sherman a call. That paper trail you wanted me to look into? It led to a series of payments from ZeiraCorp to Sherman, from about the time we met him all the way up until his death, and then a big one to his family afterwards."

Sarah glanced at Derek and shrugged. "We don't believe in coincidences in this family. Sherman and Ellison are both tied to Skynet, and both are getting paid by a company that does AI research. It's enough for me."

She glanced at the back of Ellison's file and found a police report. "Ellison was arrested recently," she read, then felt her eyebrows climb in surprise. "For murder?"

John nodded. "Look at the witness statement. The guy says that he saw Ellison walking down the street, totally naked, then watched him kill the first person he saw with his bare hands and steal his clothes."

"The doppelgänger."

"Yeah. But get this. The investigating detective does a follow-up interview, long after Ellison's already been booked, charged, identified in a lineup, and failed to give a valid alibi, and leads the witness into telling a story so crazy that the judge throws the case out after one look at it. Look at the transcript. Why would a detective with an open-and-shut case suddenly start asking his witness about energy bubbles appearing out of nowhere and how inhumanly strong the assailant was?"

Sarah nodded eagerly. She could feel the adrenaline building as John laid it all out. "He wouldn't, not unless he knew what answers he would get. I don't suppose we can talk to him?"

"Dead," John answered, surprising no one. "Parked his car on a cliff and supposedly slit his wrists. The body was found two days after Ellison went free."

"So first Cromartie lets him go, then he gets hired by a company that might be related to Skynet, after which a cyborg tries to replace him, only to be saved by Cromartie and rescued from jail by someone who looks identical to the detective on his case, and apparently knows about time travel."

John frowned at her. "You know… our lives sound pretty crazy when you say it all out loud like that."

Sarah ignored him. She knew that he was just as excited as she was by all of this. "What else do we know about ZeiraCorp?"

John didn't answer. She looked at him and saw him staring up at her from his chair with the smuggest grin she had ever seen on his face, which was saying something.

"Admit it," he said.

"Admit what?"

"That I was right about keeping Cromartie's chip."

She felt a smile tugging at the edge of her own lips. "Not a chance."

John grunted in self-satisfaction. "There's not much to know about them officially, but I'm still looking into subsidiaries. They seem to have more of those than they do actual employees. It'll take a while to follow all the trails." His face suddenly went serious again. "There's one more thing I wanted to show you."

He turned back to the console and rapidly typed in several commands. The screens lit up again, showing two images side-by-side. The first was the facial close-up that Cromartie had taken of the Ellison doppelganger. The second was of Ellison himself after Cromartie rescued him.

"I've been thinking about this for a while," John said. "Anything strike you as odd about the doppelgänger?"

Sarah studied the pictures for a moment, then shook her head. "They look identical to me. The second one's a replacement, just like Skynet did with Carl Greenway at Seranno Point."

"Exactly," John said thoughtfully. "Remember how you spotted that Greenway was a replacement?"

"The scar on his arm was missing," she answered, not sure where he was going with this.

"That's what you noticed. Not his hair, or his skin tone, or the way he walked, or anything else, even though you had just seen him a few hours earlier. Other than the scar, he was a perfect duplicate."

"Yeah."

"You don't think there's anything odd about that?"

"Like what?"

John huffed impatiently and pointed at the screens. "Look at them. They're identical. It's a perfect replacement, down to the last chin whisker."

"Yeah," Derek shrugged, just as confused as she was. "They do that."

John shook his head. "In the future they do that. Capture people, study them, fabricate terminators with precise physical resemblances," he pointed at Cameron. "Just like they did with Allison."

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Derek flinch and Cameron sit up straighter at the sound of that name, but John plowed right ahead, too absorbed to notice.

"They didn't capture Ellison or Greenway, and they were still able to send back perfect replicas. To do that they would have needed recent physical data on them. Skin tone, facial imagery, bone structure, precise height and body mass measurements. They would have needed to know when the last time they shaved was, how long their arms were, all kinds of stuff besides just how they look if they were going to fool people who knew them, who saw them every day. I mean, it's not like you can just whip up a terminator on the fly. Just like any machine, you need exact specs to work with before you can start building."

Sarah took a sharp breath. "You think they're communicating."

John nodded. "Yeah. I think Skynet has a time machine here, now. Probably somewhere near LA."

"If the endos here are communicating with Skynet, they could just be using time capsules or something," Sarah said doubtfully. "Hiding them in pre-designated locations for the machines in the future to find. We've seen them do that before, hording coltan."

John shook his head. "There's a nuclear war and a worldwide armed rebellion in the 20 years between now and then. Even Skynet would have trouble finding safe places to keep sensitive information in those circumstances. Stockpiling coltan is one thing, this is something entirely different. This is Skynet reacting to the situation in real time, something that you need real-time intelligence for. And we know that it's possible, because I already did it. If I can send back someone to build a time machine in the past, I guarantee you that Skynet can."

Sarah nodded. The thrilled feeling she'd had only a few moments ago was gone, replaced by a lump the size of a cannonball in her stomach. If Skynet really did have a time machine here, then nothing they did could have any effect on the future. Even if ZeiraCorp was the place where Skynet was being born, even if they somehow managed to bring it down, Skynet could just start over again somewhere else. Reacting in real time, like John said.

"This is the priority," she said, straightening up and folding her arms across her chest. "Everything else stops." She looked at Cameron. "No more late night trips to the library, or wherever the hell it is that you go." She cast an equally baleful glare at Derek. "No more disappearing for days at a time. If Skynet has a time machine here, then we find it and destroy it, as soon as possible."

She turned back to her son. "And since you're answering so many questions today, answer me this…"

"Who the _hell _is Allison?"

(end)

AN: Well… that only took six weeks longer than I expected. For me, that's not too bad at all. Next chapter we catch up with Ellison and find out what he's been up to, since in this version he didn't make it to Mexico with the Connors, and John recruits someone to help him look for Skynet's hypothetical time machine.

I never could understand how Dr. Sherman could die under suspicious circumstances like that and the Connors wouldn't find out and investigate. Having to go through fever-induced prophetic dreams, cross-dressing scientists, and UFO conventions to get to ZeiraCorp is way too damned complicated, particularly when your jumping-off point is a blood-streaked Wall 'O Doom from the future.

Including the portion I released back in Jaunary, this chapter runs to around 11,000 words, and that was after I moved what I had intended to be the closing scene to the beginning of chapter four, so hopefully the waiting was worth it. Thanks go to Jon and Knox over at Dark Lord Potter for pre-reading much of this, and to Dark Syaoran for letting me bounce a few ideas off of him.

Big D

AN Part Deux: I just read over this again and I have to admit that I'm shocked at the lack of sex and/or violence here. Please accept my heartfelt apologies for that, and my assurances that it will never happen again. This is one of those chapters that usually kills my fics, the ones with necessary information but very little real action. Maybe the fact that I got through it is a hopeful sign.


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